Just in its first year, Project Happiness, a new club, made its mark on campus by sending over 300 thank you letters to DMAE teachers, effectively living up to its name by putting a smile on their faces upon receipt.

“It was a big surprise for me to open an email of gratitude that day in February, and the timing was perfect,” English teacher Constance Clark said. “February was that month when we all felt the heaviness of so many months of remote teaching. Gratitude is truly the antidote and to read those letters from former and current students made me pause for a minute and smile,” she added.

The club offered all students the chance to write letters to their teachers if they had wanted to participate, and then club members organized them into short slideshows for each individual teacher. 

“Since gratitude was one of our seven keys to happiness, we thought it was fitting to give students an opportunity to express how grateful they are for staff members. I think it was important to do this, especially for the staff because they’ve been working extremely hard during these challenging times,” club president Victoria Lebron said.

Overall, the outreach was meant to commemorate teacher determination and creativity because of the pandemic.

“By having the students write these letters, especially during this time, it makes teachers feel like the work they do matters. It’s different in the classroom when you are face to face with students, but in a virtual setting you really don’t know who you are getting through to,” club adviser Melissa Conceicao commented.

Additionally, Project Happiness put together a video for the staff that included pictures of family life as a way of making it possible for teachers and staff to connect and see what their co-workers had been up to. Junior Juan Marin-Torres, who edited the video, was glad that he contributed to this worthy project.

“By doing something nice for someone, they’ll feel happy and do something kind for someone else. It’s a simple concept, but that doesn’t make it trivial. At some point, the feeling of positivity will spread and be shared throughout the campus,” Juan said.

The club has many other plans for the future to raise school spirits, including promoting DMAE’s mindfulness program, Inner Explorer. 

In challenging times for both students and staff, the Project Happiness Club hopes it sparked joy in the DMAE community with these projects and will continue to spread positivity in new ways.